A blog of the NYU Colloquium on Market Institutions and the Leipzig Colloquium on the Market Order

Kirznerian Baseball

The Mets recently hired Paul DePodesta, one of the key developer’s of the “Moneyball” approach to finding and hiring baseball talent in Oakland. DePodesta describes what Moneyball really is here:

DePodesta, who left Oakland to serve as the Los Angeles Dodgers’ general manager for two seasons before becoming an executive with the San Diego Padres, said that Lewis’s 2003 book — which remains a bible for statistics-minded fans — was a caricature. Statistics are important, he said, but the Moneyball philosophy is more an approach to evaluating talent, not a constrictive road map.

“In my mind, Moneyball really has absolutely nothing to do with on-base percentage; for that matter, it doesn’t really have anything to do with statistics,” he said Tuesday on a conference call with reporters. “Rather, Moneyball is really about a constant investigation of stagnant systems to see if you can find value where it isn’t readily apparent.”